Drabbles and Ficlets
by AliceSloane13
Summary: Just some smaller pieces that I've written. They feature an array of characters, including: Aubrey, Beca, Chloe, Fat Amy, Jesse, Jessica, Lilly, Stacie
1. La Douleur Equise (Bechloe)

" _You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit." ~Oscar Wilde_

XOXOXO

Five years, six months, and twenty-seven days - It's been long enough- too long.

"I can't do this anymore," Chloe says, exhaustion weighing down her words.

Beca stares, confused. "Can't do what?"

Chloe smiles, a smile that comes straight from her broken heart. "It's time for me to let go."

"Of what?" Now she's worried – fearful. Chloe sounds like she's whispering goodbye.

Chloe looks at her lap, resigned. "Of you Beca. Loving you is killing me. Your fear is suffocating me. Please just let me go. "

"You're my best friend." Beca cries.

Chloe shakes her head, "Sweetie, it's not enough."


	2. Nepenthe (Chloe)

_(n) something that can make you forget grief or suffering_

Chloe Beale is an affectionate person. She touches. She invades. She cares.

Chloe Beale is also a resourceful person. Her intentions are pure, but they are not without motivation.

Chloe Beale is fragmented. She is searching for something she may never find. She is damaged and broken and speaks her needs through affection and touch.

Each hug is question— each lingering second a prayer.

Chloe Beale is searching for something she may never find, but her eyes stay hopeful through it all.

Broken

Shattered

Damaged

Chloe Beale seeks out the love she needs, by sharing the love she can give.


	3. Monachopsis (Jessica)

_(n) the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place_

Jessica had never been depressed. She had been shy and isolated, but she was happy— **so** happy. Being alone for her had never meant being lonely. Books had been her companions.

She still believed in magic, in fairy tales, in love. She looked for the quiet moments when people would care.

Being a Bella was something new. She had people. She was part of a group— a group that claimed her as their own (even if they didn't know her name). It was something foreign, but welcomed.

She was a part of it all, but somehow still on the fringe.


	4. Sonder (Stacie)

_(n) the realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own_

XOXOXO

Stacie loves people. She loves the way they move. She loves the way they sound. She loves the way they touch.

By twelve people watching was her favorite hobby. At fifteen, she desired more, so she kissed her best friend. She began to seek out those kinds of tender ministrations.

It took four years for those innocent affections to become something sensual — sexual. She may have been a late bloomer, but she never limited her need to connect.

Stacie pretends things aren't meaningful. She's just a girl having fun, but Stacie loves people and she always wants to know more.


	5. Kenopsia (Aubrey)

_(n.) the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that's usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet_

Aubrey knew it was a mistake to go back. It was a mistake to think there would be anything left to see. Empty walls do not replace the presence of love. The echo of her heels can't replace the music that once lived.

Standing in the empty skeleton of the auditorium was a mistake. She felt like it was her duty, her responsibility. The Bellas were family, even when they'd grown apart.

In days, the building would be gone, replaced by something shiny and new.

Memories would be forgotten and the last traces of her happy place would be lost.


	6. Ellipsism (Lilly)

_(n) a sadness that you'll never be able to know how history will turn out_

XOXOXO

Lilly was never one to play by the rules. She didn't see things in black and white. She didn't understand right from wrong in the traditional sense.

Lilly is creative. She is imaginative. She is curious. She liked to know how things work. Picking things apart until the answers are clear, is what she does best. She desires to understand.

Lilly wonders what will happen next.

Where will the world be tomorrow? In a month? In a hundred years?

Lilly wants answers, so she creates. Lilly finds a way to explore the unknowable— time machine, just her own.


	7. Jouska (Beca)

_(n) a hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head_

"Jesse, we need to talk." It's such a simple sentence. A sentence Beca can't force off her tongue and between clenched teeth. She knows the story, even if she doesn't like movies. =

 _I'm not in love with you, maybe I never was. You're important to me. You're a great friend. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm an asshole._

 _I'm in love with Chloe Beale._ That line isn't for Jesse. That one is just for her. Maybe one day it will be for Chloe too.

She has to stop talking in her own mind. She has to start speaking aloud.


	8. Anechdoche (Fat Amy)

_(n) a conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening_

Patricia grew up in a household of ten, a family notoriously anything BUT shy. Words flew through the walls of home like a hurricane: blowing around and crashing against one another.

Patricia had dreams. She had thoughts and questions and words— so many words of her own. Words that got lost. Words that grew silent over time, muted to everyone else.

She left home. She changed her name. She changed herself. Now she takes charge of a room. When she speaks, people listen. Amy speaks volumes, but she's lost the nerve to speak the words Patricia had longed to say.


	9. Exulansis (Aubrey)

_(n) the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it_

Aubrey stopped trying to explain herself long ago. Either people stay or they go. It's not her job to tell them otherwise.

Aubrey didn't always have a cold exterior. She tried to share. She told stories of her father and confessed to the anxiety she felt. The pressure her father put on her to be someone she's not.

Chloe sees it, but it's not the same. Yet, she doesn't see the pain beneath thick skin and perfected poise.

Aubrey has given up on being whole. She just quotes her father's words and hopes they don't kill her in the end.


	10. Adronitis (Jesse)

_(n) frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone._

Jesse knew that Beca would never be his. He tried to get to know her. He tried to love her. She mattered, not just to him. She just mattered.

It didn't work. The walls stayed firmly in place.

Jesse pushed her away, but even that scared her. Suddenly she was fighting for him. They both knew it was only fear. Fear of being alone. Fear of no one left.

Then she noticed Chloe, Chloe who had always noticed her. Jesse felt hope. Maybe Chloe could show her the truth. Jesse loved Beca, but she would always belong to someone else.


	11. Nodus Tollens (Beca)

_(n) the realization that the plot of your life doesn't make sense to you anymore_

It was graduation when it happened. She was on the stage. Beca stopped hand trapped before her hand could rise towards the outstretched hands. Eyes were on here as she froze on stage. This was her life.

Chloe waited at the bottom of the stairs, ignoring the ushering forward. They would do this together.

LA, her _only_ goal, wasn't important, not like she thought it did

College. Friends. Music. Chloe.

This was her life. Ignoring the line of handshakes, jumping from the stage, she surprised the redhead with a kiss, a silent promise of a life yet to be explored.


	12. Occhiolism (Jessica)

_(n) the awareness of the smallness of your perspective_

Jessica grew up on stories. She lived through fairy tales and sagas. Her favorites were pirates, living on the seas, each day an adventure. It was a whole world inside her head that seemed too large to be contained.

When Jessica looks to the sky, she feels small. In her own life, her world, she feels tiny— always in the background, but never displaced.

She grew up on magic. She grew with a yearning for something more. When Jessica looks at the stars she remembers, we are all made of stardust. It's just magical enough. There's still time for adventure.


	13. Opia (BecaBechloe)

_(n) the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable_

Beca isn't confident about a lot of things— not her voice, not her body, not her ability to make a friend and not fuck it up.

She _is_ confident that what happened in the showers was something good. Eyes locked, breathing synced, words and harmonies melting together in a symbiosis her emotions desired. Her soul fed off that raw look in Chloe's eyes as their voices found home. Their home.

She tells Chloe they'll be friends because she saw her naked. It's the truth, hidden within the glib tones and flirty wink. They were naked though, Beca most of all.


	14. Ambedo (Aubrey)

_n a kind of melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details, briefly soaking in the experience of being alive, an act that is done purely for its own sake._

There's a forgotten scarf on the floor, tossed aside with a sheet of music. Aubrey picks them up. Quietly humming the melody transcribed, she holds the scarf to her chest.

Starring around the space before her, memories flash within her mind. She swears she can hear her friends laughing. Those were good days—great days. Closing her eyes, she can smell home.

"Didn't you see the sign?" Chloe asks, referring to the no trespassing one outside. She steps beside her friend and entangles their fingers. They're in a world that once was theirs, with memories that sing goodbye.


	15. Gnossiene (Chloe)

_(n) a moment of awareness that someone you've known for years still has a private and mysterious inner life, and somewhere in the hallways of their personality is a door locked from the inside, a stairway leading to a wing of the house that you've never fully explored—an unfinished attic that will remain maddeningly unknowable to you, because ultimately neither of you has a map, or a master key, or any way of knowing exactly where you stand._

Everyone thinks Beca is the one with carefully placed walls to protect her heart and secrets, but Chloe demolished those over a decade ago. No one looks past Chloe's bright eyes or loving heart to see what's really inside, until one day Beca see's something. It's just a look, a fleeting moment, which may be something or nothing at all.

Others would ignore it. They wouldn't want to know that there's something broken and lonely behind the bravest person they know.

It means something though, Beca _knows_ it does and it breaks her heart. Chloe has something deep within herself that she can't share with anyone. Maybe after such a long time she no longer knows how.

Beca doesn't push and she doesn't ask, but as she's staring at Chloe the redhead see's something in her eyes — the discovery of what she's kept locked so far inside that even she forgot it was there. She inhales sharply, feeling a panic rise beneath her skin.

Beca leans forward and kisses her cheek, knowing it's enough for now. "When the time comes, I'll keep you safe," she whispers.

Chloe feels like it's more than she deserves, but accepts the gesture all the same.

That night when everyone is asleep, Chloe finds her way to Beca's bed and slips between the sheets. "I'm scared," she whispers into the dark, finding it easier. "I'm scared that I'll never find the words."

Beca doesn't have an answer or a single thought that might help. She just pulls Chloe into her arms and let's herself take over Chloe's struggle, for just a little while. "You don't always need words. Maybe acceptance is enough," Beca wonders aloud. "I love you. I will always love you, even if we never have all the answers."

Chloe buries her face against Beca's shoulder and listens to the rhythm in her chest. Pressure relived just enough that she can ignore it, she understands what Beca is saying. Love doesn't always mean knowing. Sometimes love can just be. It can flow between two people, shifting the weight of life between them in a way that their troubles merge between them.

Loving Chloe means loving her troubles, even the ones hidden so deep inside they can no longer be reached. Beca gets this— _really_ gets this. That's when she knows they're forever.


End file.
